Direct reduction plants for producing direct reduced iron, known as DRI or sponge iron, hot briquetted iron, or the like, (in general pre-reduced materials useful as feedstocks for iron and steelmaking), currently produce DRI by reacting a reducing gas, composed principally of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, at temperatures in the range of 750 to 1050.degree. C., with a bed of particulate iron-containing material. Since the handling of feed materials produce variable quantities of iron ore fines, there has been a constant search for methods and apparatus which avoid the problems of processing fines in a conventional reactor shaft. The most common solution in the past has been to pelletize the fines to give a relatively easily handled particulate charge of quite uniform size (on the order of 3/8ths of an inch). However, such pelletization adds to the cost of the overall process for the production of DRI. Also even pelletized ores include fines that are generated by the ordinary process handling of the pellets. If the pelletizing step could be eliminated (and instead use just ore lumps) without causing more problems than it solves, this would be very desirable.